Voices for Renewal

Critics of priestly and religious celibacy can rejoice in the knowledge that they have intellectual forbears among Thinking Catholics™ of all epochs. The cartoon above is taken from the July 1936 issue of Der Stürmer, Julius Streicher's famous Nazi Party newspaper. Under the caricature of the priest and nun and the decadent Jews (smoking, no doubt, in a poorly ventilated public area), the jingle reads:

This lot to the Church, that to Satan consigned: And both of 'em utterly lost to mankind!

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cincinnatus, but the point is that we, as Catholic, continue to maintain that a life lived according to the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, obedience is good: "Likewise, the holiness of the Church is fostered in a special way by the observance of the counsels proposed in the Gospel by Our Lord to His disciples. An eminent position among these is held by virginity or the celibate state." LG 42 -- and it's clear that this cartoon was critical of it.

Posted by: cincinnatus -
Mar. 07, 2005 11:52 PM ET USA

Your linking of the Stuermer cartoon to present-day opposition to celibacy is "unfruchtbar." Check the correct translation of "Volksgemeinschaft" and "unfruchtbar" as used in the cartoon. I think you'll find that the cartoon is more about Nazi views of Aryan women who consort with Jews than about celibacy. Why weaken the good case that can be made for celibacy by drawing comparisons that are not really ad rem and that your opponents might reasonably characterize as invidious or propgandistic?

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